Occupational Therapy Aides

Under close supervision of an occupational therapist or occupational therapy assistant, perform only delegated, selected, or routine tasks in specific situations. These duties include preparing patient and treatment room.

The occupation "Occupational Therapy Aides" has an automation risk of 32.9%, closely aligning with its base risk of 33.3%. This moderate risk reflects a balance between tasks that are highly repetitive and those that require human judgment or personal interaction. Occupational Therapy Aides often engage in routine activities, but their work environment—centered on patient care—introduces unique variables that limit full automation. The need for adaptability and direct human engagement is a significant barrier to entirely automating this job. Thus, while some aspects could be streamlined with technology, most tasks still demand a human touch. The most automatable tasks for this role involve routine and predictable activities such as encouraging patients and attending to their physical needs to help them meet therapeutic goals, reporting to supervisors or therapists on patients' progress both orally and in writing, and observing patients’ attendance, progress, and accomplishments and maintaining client records. These duties are structured and involve repeated actions, making them suitable targets for automation through software or specialized equipment. For example, artificial intelligence can standardize reporting, monitor patient engagement through sensors or wearable technology, and even provide reminders or encouragement via digital interfaces. Conversely, the tasks most resistant to automation are those requiring interpersonal nuance, interpretation, or situational adaptability. Assisting educational specialists or clinical psychologists in administering tests to measure a client’s abilities, accompanying patients on outings and providing transportation, and evaluating the living skills and capacities of individuals with disabilities all require real-time feedback, empathy, and critical assessment. These activities demand a level of originality and personalized understanding that current automation solutions struggle to replicate. The occupation’s bottleneck skill—originality, measured at just 2.6%—shows that while complex creativity is a minor part of the job, it remains a crucial barrier, ensuring the continued necessity of human workers for tasks involving nuanced assessment and dynamic interaction.